Norwegian Escape Review
Rating by category
Additional details
My wife and I discovered in 2011 that we liked to cruise with our first trip in Hawaii aboard Pride of America. It was an awesome experience and we craved more. Since then we sailed upon Carnival Dream and Carnival Inspiration because we wanted to compare, and they never seemed to quire measure up to our first experience. So, this year we purposely booked with NCL a second time to see if the experience repeated. I can easily say we are home. So much so we decided to book two more with NCL through their Cruise Next program. The service is superior anywhere on board, be it our stateroom, dining cafeteria, bingo, whatever. Didn't matter. Something else I noted was there was never a mess. So either nobody on this ship made a mess, or, the crew was so responsive that you never saw it before they cleaned it up. I believe the latter is more probable.
Shortly after we entered our cabin for the first time there was a knock at the door. It was our cabin attendant. He asked if he could enter and show us few things. He gave us a quick rundown of our cabin and how everything worked, what to do with towels, etc. Very helpful and friendly. Awesome touch.
The food was fantastic in both variety and quality. I gained weight. Again, food servers did not allow dirty dishes to remain on your table in front of you. As soon as you finished a dish, swoosh...it was gone. I also appreciate the hand sprayers when you enter the dining room. Everyone gets their hands sanitized. We experienced this on Pride of America and glad to see it is still the standard practice. Carnival doesn't do this.
Cabin Review
Mid-ship Balcony Stateroom
We had a mid-ship balcony stateroom. It was roomy, especially the bathroom and shower. We had three outlets in the room, plus USB ports. Fantastic!!! I brought an extension cord for the purpose of creating more receptacles, but it wasn't needed. We had plenty and I am glad the new ship considered this in its design.
Port Reviews
Tortola
We were going to go self shopping but there was nothing. We ended up taking a tour from a local dude operating his own service. It was ok, but we didn't find anything of much interest except the beaches. Problem is we were still sun burned from St. Thomas so we didn't want to repeat a beach day.
St. Thomas
We took a taxi to Megan's Bay. Gorgeous beach. Wear sunscreen or you will quickly regret it!!!! I'm not too prone to sunburn myself, but I burned pretty good in a short period, and our chairs were under a shade tree. I spent a total of about 30 minutes out in the water exposed to the sun but total time at the beach about two and a half hours. I didn't realized I had burned until I got back to ship and I needed aloe.
Miami
We didn't do anything in Miami. We flew in the day prior to boarding the ship, arriving about 7 PM. After dinner we retired for the evening at our Hotel. We stayed at the Holiday Inn Port of Miami Downtown. Great accommodations prior to sailing as it is very near the ship terminal.